1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a recording medium storing a program for controlling a video game, a controlling method of a video game and a game apparatus.
2. Description of the Related Art
There are available a number of kinds of games provided by video games. Among others, there are video games in which battles between characters, including player characters operated by a player and enemy characters controlled by a computer, are displayed on a display screen.
In a video game of this kind, there are set actions that are executed, such as attack, defense and use of an item executed by a player character or an enemy character, in response to manual input from the player, or in accordance with an algorithm for controlling actions of the characters contained in a game program. Execution of an action means executing display, audio output or battle calculation corresponding to an action performed during the game by the player character or the enemy character.
Processing regarding an action of the player character, i.e., receiving of manual input is thus started, and the period for which processing of the action of the player character set in response to the manual input is defined in this specification as an action turn of the player character. Further in this specification, an action of the enemy character is set in accordance with a process regarding the action of the enemy character, or more specifically, in accordance with an algorithm for controlling actions of the characters contained in the game program, and the period for execution thereof is defined as an action turn of the enemy character.
There are conventionally available the following two controlling techniques for switching over between an action turn of the player character and an action turn of the enemy character in the aforementioned video game. The first technique comprises the steps of executing an action turn of the enemy character after the completion of an action turn of the player character, and then, executing an action turn of the player character: the technique is to alternately execute an action turn of the player character and an action turn of the enemy character. The second technique is to set a waiting time from the completion of a current action turn of a character until the start of the next action turn for each of the player character and the enemy character, and control the execution of the action turn of each character on the lapse of time.
The technique of switching over between the action turn of the player character and the action turn of the enemy character is poor, however, in actual feeling of a battle scene, since the actions of the player character and the enemy character always execute alternately. In the technique of controlling the execution of the action turns of the individual characters on the basis of the lapse of time, a period of time during which an instruction of an action cannot be issued to the player character may sometimes occur, and the progress of the same may take a lot of time.
In order to improve game excitement and operability in such a game, it is important to increase the actual feeling in a battle scene, and ensure efficient progress of the game. For this purpose, it is necessary to design a control technique for switching over between the action turn of the player character and the action turn of the enemy character.